25% Of People Think They Can Cook This Meal Better Than The Pioneer Woman
Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman, is a celebrity with numerous fans, but also a whole host of detractors. What causes some of us to diss her and others to find her at least somewhat relatable is that she obviously isn't a real chef, nor does she even pretend to be. Instead, she's just a simple (fairly wealthy) girl who marries a country boy (who is extremely wealthy) and settles into a life of child-rearin', God-fearin', and working almost half a million acres of Oklahoma cattle ranch. Well, it seems Ms. Drummond got bored with her housewifely duties, decided to post a few of her recipes online, and hey presto, faster than you can say Charli D'Amelio, she somehow morphed into one of the biggest overnight celebrities of the pre-TikTok era.
Gazillions of dollars and her own lifestyle brand later, Ree's still muddling along in the kitchen, producing some hits but also more than her share of misses. Just for fun, we decided to run a little (ok, not so little) poll to see just what dishes most of us think we can make a better version of than Mrs. Drummond. Mashed surveyed 555 respondents all across the U.S. and found out that almost everybody thinks they can beat The Pioneer Woman in at least one kitchen throw-down.
Her spaghetti sauce is kind of sketchy
Watching The Pioneer Woman fail (or at least produce stuff that we and everybody we know would find gag-worthy) can be oddly comforting since those of us who don't cook can tell ourselves, "At least I don't put mustard on my eggs," while those who do can rest assured that we'd darn well never have to resort to throwing random cans in a pot and calling it soup. Some of her standby recipes, after all, are just so...wtf, for want of a better word (or acronym).
One such recipe is the one for her spaghetti sauce containing an insane 5 pounds of ground beef – admittedly she says the dish is meant to feed 18, but that's still an overwhelming amount of meat for the amount of tomatoes used. And speaking of tomatoes, canned crushed tomatoes are good; tomato paste, is an ok but unnecessary ingredient, but then, if you're going to the trouble of making your own sauce, why in the name of Chef Boyardee would you also throw in a jar of the store-bought kind? Her recipe for spaghetti and meatballs is more straightforward but there's really nothing special about it. No wonder that 25 percent of survey respondents think their own version is superior.
Banana bread should be cooked by people who actually like bananas
It's kind of surprising to find a recipe for banana bread on the Pioneer Woman's web site since Drummond has admitted that bananas are the one food she just can't stand. Fair enough; that fruit doesn't a-peel to everyone. Plus, bananas aren't necessarily the healthiest type of produce, either, so there's no reason to try to sneak a little more banana into your diet if you'd just as soon avoid the stuff.
That being said, though, why would you trust a banana recipe from someone who is no fan of the fruit? That's like asking a vegan the best way to cook a steak! Ok, so Drummond did say that she gobbled down banana bread after breaking a long carb fast, but she says it hasn't happened since that time, and probably won't again unless she decided to go on (and then off) another carb-free diet. At any rate, whatever Drummond may or may not do with her overripe bananas, assuming she even keeps them around for Marlboro Man and the Pioneer Kids, roughly 21 percent of survey respondents feel their own banana bread is better than hers.
The other dishes people believe they do better
Everybody's got their go-to mac and cheese recipe, even if it's just opening the blue box and following the directions. While Drummond, in the directions from the recipe on her website, touts herself as some kind of mac and cheese guru due to having consumed nothing else until she turned 14 (is that something to be proud of?), 19 percent of people still prefer our own recipe (or Kraft's) to hers. And despite the fact that chicken-fried steak is a southern comfort food classic, something that ranch wife Drummond naturally feels is right in her wheelhouse, 13 percent of respondents think their version would be much better than hers.
Nine percent of people, whether confident bakers or just conversant with the mystery of those Pillsbury tubes, would prefer their cinnamon rolls to hers, as well...After all, how good can a recipe be if it starts off by saying, "Don't be afraid to drown them in frosting?" It's not the frosting we fear, Rhee, but the possibility of what lies beneath. If those rolls could stand on their own, then why would you feel the need to drown them?
Some people want nothing to do with PW
As usual, Mashed included a survey category for "other" that received a number of alternate answers. Several respondents felt their own chicken curry recipes would be superior to her "in a hurry" version, while another suggested carne guisada, something Ree's evidently never attempted. (The closest thing on her website is carne asada, but that recipe was contributed by someone else.) One respondent we can all identify with said "Pop-Tarts," which, tbh, can be kind of tricky to get properly toasted without burning.
Quite a lot of people thought they couldn't cook anything better than PW, though they probably have far superior takeout, delivery, and drive-thru skills. Others thought that everything they cooked would be better. A surprising number asked "Who is Pioneer Woman?" and "who are you talking about?" A less-surprising, yet still significant number, however, knew just who she is, and did not hesitate to share their opinions: "I can't stand her food," "I can't stand her," and a succinct, yet heartfelt, "f*** her."
While we have had no response to our survey from The Pioneer Woman herself (most likely related to the fact that we've made zero attempts to contact her), it seems likely that she'd bear up well under the strain of knowing that she is not universally adored. After all, even if she is crying into her cayenne peppered coffee, she's still sobbing all the way to the bank.